A tool to fight crime or an invasion of privacy?

Southwest Florida law enforcement agencies call it a valuable tool to help fight crime, but some civil liberty organizations call it an invasion of privacy. There is a brewing debate over whether police should be able to use licenses plate scanners.

The cameras are able to capture dozens of plates a minute. They can also help find stolen cars, missing people and even fugitives.

NBC 2 Investigator Dave Elias set out to discover what police agencies are doing with the data the cameras collect.

The technology is so new that there are no policies in Florida on how long police can keep the data they collect.

But that's changing, since NBC 2 started asking questions.

"The truth is you can't have too many tools," said Cape Coral Police Captain Mike Torregrossa.

The high tech cameras the department uses are mounted on the trunk of an unmarked police cruiser.

Officer Jeremy McClurg runs hundreds of images an hour through criminal data bases. He's looking to see if a car is stolen or maybe being driven by a fugitive.

"All we're trying to do is identify bad people driving vehicles that should not be on the roadway or potential threats to all of us," McClurg said.

The images captured by the cameras allow officers to access the owner's address, driving record and even in some cases social security numbers if the driver has previously been arrested.

Cape Coral discards the information it gathers after 72 hours unless the plate gets a hit and then the data is held as evidence.

The Florida ACLU worries the cameras allow law enforcement to monitor a drivers every move. They fear sharing the information gives government a roadmap of where drivers have been.

"Is it being deleted promptly or is it being put into a database that tracks everybody's motion as they drive around town?" said ACLU Spokesperson Baylor Johnson.

Digging deeper, the NBC2 Investigators discovered that the technology is so new that there are no guidelines for how long an agency can or should hold the information.

Collier County has a year's worth of stored data. Lee County currently has no data stored.

And Charlotte County has three year's worth of collected data.

No one at the sheriff's offices would speak on camera. They did send a statement saying they were reviewing their own policies.

"We're certainly in support of really tight limits on how that data can be kept," Johnson said.

Officers maintain the data simply allows police to stay one step ahead of the bad guys.

"It's just another tool in our toolbox to find the bad guys who are preying on the fine citizens of this community," Torregrossa said.

Researching state law, we discovered there is no policy for how long the data can be kept.

However, a bill being introduced in the legislature calls for setting a minimum and maximum amount of time the images and information can be kept.

The department of homeland security just scrapped plans to create its own database from all of the agencies using these scanners. The ACLU applauds that decision.

The Charlotte County Sheriff's Office reports they have made 24 arrests using the scanners since 2013.